Thousands of Syrian civilians fled from a rebel pocket in eastern Ghouta on Thursday, crossing by foot to army positions in the first mass exodus from the besieged enclave since Syrian government forces launched an assault to capture it a month ago.

Donald Trump Tuesday sacked his top diplomat Rex Tillerson and named current CIA chief Mike Pompeo to succeed him, ending a rocky tenure by the Texas oilman who had been sidelined on the world stage by the mercurial president.

A Russian military transport plane crashed in Syria on Tuesday killing all 39 people on board, Russian officials said, an incident that sharply raised the death toll from the Kremlin’s intervention in the Syrian war.

Syria's regime seized control of over a quarter of rebel-held Eastern Ghouta on the edge of Damascus after two weeks of devastating bombardment, sending hundreds of civilians into flight, a monitor said Sunday.

Senior officials from Pyongyang visiting South Korea on Sunday said North Korea was open to talks with the United States, according to the South's presidency, hours after the North accused Washington of trying to stir up conflict on the peninsula with new sanctions.

The Dutch parliament on Thursday passed a motion recognizing as genocide the massacre of as many as 1.5 million Armenians in 1915, although the government said it would not become official policy of the Netherlands.

Haiti has temporarily revoked Oxfam's authorization to operate in the Caribbean country after allegations of sexual misconduct by some of the British charity's staff there, Planning and External Cooperation Minister Aviol Fleurant said on Thursday.